Overview of the Alcatel 1B and the Alcatel 1X. Is a budget phone still a thing in 2020? By Benjamin Heide

Hey there, it's Ben Hyde here, and today we're taking a look at the Alcatel their new line up here. Uh we've got the Alcatel 1b and the Alcatel 1x we're going to kind of do just a little of an unboxing, and we're also going to just see how these phones, which are super budget phones. This one, I believe, is around 100 bucks, Canadian and this one retails for about 150. So we're going to kind of see what these entry level phones, how they perform uh and how they stack up against. You know: phones that are crazy, expensive. Compared to these, for instance, the Samsung Galaxy s 20 ultra at launch, you could buy literally 20 phones or 21 of these phones in Canada for the same price as that phone.

This one you're, looking more along the line of around 14 phones, so 14 of these 21 of these for the same price as a galaxy s20, really we're going to see how it shapes up. So, first up we're going to take a look here at the Alcatel 1b, let's see what's in the box and what you get with a super affordable phone here, as you can see. Actually I did take a look honestly just opened the box just to kind of peek, but I never actually took stuff out of it. So this is all new for me. We've got a couple of guides here.

Manual looks like uh, French and English here for us Canadians, uh, it does come with a charger in there. A cable and uh then looks like our battery as well looks like we get a add-in battery, which is quite, quite unique for this day and age. So now that we've got this stuff out of the box, we're looking at a 1, amp, 5 volt chargers, a micro USB charger here. So it's kind of old school, not the USB that we see in all the newer phones, but so we've got the one amp charger micro USB and a 3 000 William battery. So it's kind of unique here with this phone with a removable back.

There actually is a bit of a pry notch there, I'm not sure if you can see that on the video there, but there's a pry notch, so we pop that sucker open, and then we have the option or the opportunity to insert the battery and uh. Of course, your sim card as well, but for this uh first look today here we're just uh we're not putting a sim card in, and then we're going to fire this up and see exactly what we're into all right. So we're powering up the phone here again. Keep in mind. This is the 1b.

This is the lowest end phone that Alcatel is currently offering, so we don't expect it to be a super speedy powerhouse. A couple of things to note as this boots. Up again, we have that removable battery without pry notch. There also there is expandable storage, and it takes a micro, sim or a NATO sim. Rather to get you connected, it is unlocked, so you can connect to your favorite network provider, and we're just going to take a break here and set up this device all right, so we're connecting to Wi-Fi here.

It's trying to find a Wi-Fi network, we definitely have a Wi-Fi network here. We've got an open one here. BCC HQ south open going to connect to that to allow the phone to do the rest of its setup and maintenance and updates and everything that it needs to do already. We've got the update installed now we're just going to do a total, fresh deal here and finish this setup. All right.

We are signed in to our Google account, and we should be good to go here all right. We're going to set up a screen lock here that looks good nice and secure should do it, and why don't we continue? Furthermore, we should be very good here and get the chance to take a look at the first boot off of the Alcatel 1b. There we go so we can see here. We've got a couple options: we've got different home screen. Styles: we've got our home screen with a whole drawer thing which I'm pretty much used to, so we're going to leave it with that.

The other option is just a home screen, only kind of really simplify it. But this way we've got the drawer to all of our apps and that sort of thing and pull down for notifications, of course as well. So that's the first look, first boot and unboxing of the Alcatel 1b we're going to take a look also at the Alcatel 1x. So stay tuned. It's still Ben Hyde here at BCC hardware and right now we're going to take a look at now.

The Alcatel 1 x and open this little device here and see what 150 gets yet as opposed to a hundred 2200 Canadian here for the s20 ultra. So we've got the device here. Uh we've also got again the same uh precautions and safety guide, as well as the quick start guide, a sim eject tool. So that's a little different because the last phone, the 1b the back, was removable. So we didn't need an eject tool for that.

This one clearly is not a removable back, so we've got our sim eject tool, and we've got our power adapter here, as well as our cable, all right with the one x. As we see uh, we've got a little bigger screen, 32 gigs of ram internal or ROM, as well as two gigs of ram, so not not a ram power house, but should be enough to get the job done for just about everybody, especially for the price point um. Also, around back here, they've, that's a gosh! It's a gorgeous phone! So we're going to peel this off to take a better look and see what they've done. It's a plastic back versus all these glass backs. So it's going to be more durable, but it's also probably going to take scratches easier kind of nice gradient there from blue, very, very metallic fleck blue to black.

At the top. There we've got our cameras. We've got our side buttons with the volume and power USB type c in the bottom, and this other side. We've got our kind of our Bixby button or Google Assistant kind of button, as well as the sim card slot there as well. The one x has that sim card tray that we mentioned, and it also supports a micro, SD, expandable storage as well.

So once you get that loaded up with everything you need for extra storage and your sim go ahead and pop that in, and we're going to without a sim in there we're going to boot this up and just take a look at again, first boot and first setup. While it does that, I guess I did forget to mention that this connector here is a 2 amp charger, where the previous, the 1b was a 1 amp, so you're going to get a little faster charge through the USB type-c connection, not the worst splash screen in the world. But it's definitely not a real high-end. What I kind of like about this phone for the nice point you're, actually getting a notch screen, even with the camera up at the top there, which is pretty cool the fact that for this price, you get a notch screen all right. It connected to Wi-Fi a little faster, as you saw the last one took a fair bit of time to detect and connect to this Wi-Fi this one's doing a little better.

Again, it's going to check for updates, install updates, and we'll be back when it does that to finish the first time setup all right now, the basic install setup is done, we're going to not copy our apps and data and that sort of thing and let it continue on with setup all right we're going to set up the super-duper secure, screen lock here, because that's what we want to do. I want to make sure that nobody, guesses our screen lock unless they try 1111 times, and they'll, probably get it right at that point. Just finishing up the last couple of things here with the setup in this phone uh we're going to skip the voice, match voice assistant stuff for the moment, because we're basically just using this as a demo phone here for a few days just to see how it stacks up and what you're getting for the price, because this is incredibly affordable. Is it good enough? Is my question for a replacement phone for a backup phone or for a first time, phone we'll find out stay tuned for a little more here, as we compare the Alcatel 1x the 1b and see how they stack up with expensive flagship phones from Samsung. So we've got all three phones lined up here side by side, we've got the 1b the one x and the s20 ultra we're gonna, make sure that everything is closed here on all phones and then just for funsies uh, not really a fair comparison, but we're going to load up a couple of things and see how it goes so see.

If we can do this here, uh with Google play on the count of three we're going to get three things going here, one two, three and interestingly enough, the s20 I mean not surprising, was the first one up. Next up was the 1b. The slowest phone of the bunch was the second-fastest phone to launch the chrome or the Google Play Store. So that's that now we're going to launch the Chrome browser two and three there we go Samsung up. First, this guy's up second and the one x up last once again fascinating.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't bet that all right, the other thing we're going to do here. We did the play store. We did that we're going to launch the camera app uh again once again here on the count of three one, two and three, and between the s20 and the one and this one came up last again. So that's interesting. The Alcatel 1x more features better interface high-res screen, but all that comes at a hit of performance, so I mean none of them are sluggish.

I mean you can pull down your apps and do what you got to do there. I guess there's not that many apps installed on any of those phones, but they're. You know they're, responsive for sure, there's not that they're unresponsive or laggy. It's just uh. The 1x is the slowest of the two from Alcatel.

Of course, that's not a fair comparison, we'll get that guy out of the picture for now. So we're going to be doing a little more here over the next few days, comparing the 1x and the 1b, and we'll be letting you guys know and seeing how our thoughts are. You know in a few days right now, though, I will say that the 1b with that plastic back on it, I mean it's a nice, feel it's gripper you're not going to drop it uh. It is easy, but it feels cheap. It feels like uh, a Nokia like a Lucia phone that Microsoft was selling a few years back, and this one feels a lot higher quality, but I do guarantee you that it's going to scratch the heck, unless you get a case on this guy, so we're going to be back here in the next little I'll just be for moments for you guys, but over the next few days, we're going to take a look at these see how they perform in the real world and see if we could survive with a mainstream phone rather than a crazy flagship.

Again. This is Ben Hyde for BCC hardware signing off for now I'll be right back so as we're wrapping up the uh. The comparison here with the new Alcatel 1b and the one x uh, just a couple of things to note. First, they're not a galaxy s uh. These are definitely entry level phones, uh, based on you know the build quality, the fit and finish I mean uh, very, very plastic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I mean you'll be able to drop this onto concrete, and you're not going to shatter the back of it like you would a glass phone, so there is that extra durability um the one x. On the other hand, my concern with it is that it's very, very beautiful, very shiny, uh and plastic as well, but my feeling is that you're, probably going to end up uh having some major scratches and that the plastic feels a little stiffer, which adds some kind of some a better feel to the device, but at the same time that stiffer plastic could crack. If you drop it, so I'm not sure how you're going to get a case for kind of entry level phone like that. But overall I mean these phones are quite fast. I mean for what they are uh battery life on them is phenomenal uh I haven't been using them heavily, but I don't know if you can see their battery life is down uh, 86 percent, basically out of probably a day's worth of usage just with Wi-Fi on uh once you stick a sim card in that, of course, and it's searching for Wi-Fi or for a mobile signal.

You're, definitely going to drop this one here with a bigger screen, we're looking at 77, so you're going to see better battery life on the smaller device, lower, smaller battery, but slower processor, less screen resolution equals ultimately a bit longer battery life. For that so uh could the question I'm kind of asking myself is here: could I use one of these as a fill in? Let's say if my s20 ultra was down out of commission for breakage or warranty, I totally could uh these phones they're not a premium experience, but you know what they're they're plenty good uh to fill in for a person who's used to something faster, they're, not considerably they're, not pathetically slow, they're, definitely slower. If you're trying to run massive amounts of applications, it's going to struggle, but for basic usage for texting messaging phone calls. I mean web browsing camera anything they're, decent, they're, very solid. I believe the MSRP on the 1b is around 100 bucks.120 bucks in Canada and the 1x is around that 150 to 180 totally worth the price fantastic value on both. Oddly, though, my money would be on the 1b, the absolute entry level device, I think it's going to stand up longer, but again, keep in mind these do not have any water ingress protection with a removable back.

So there is that right things to keep in mind both solid products, these Alcatel, 1b and 1x both solid products both worth looking at. If you're looking for a smartphone on a budget that you want to do everything, these will pretty much do everything not as well as a 2 000 phones. But again you could buy 14 of this for the price of a s20 ultra again, this is Ben Hyde from BCC hardware, taking a look at the Alcatel 1b, the one x and given our thoughts, we have camera samples link in the description and YouTube there. So make sure you check that out. If you want some camera samples, those will be available thanks so much for watching we'll catch you next time.

You.

Source : Benjamin Heide